Lytx Name Change Reflects New Direction for San Diego’s DriveCam

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San Diego-based DriveCam, which is 15 years old and has more than 240 employees, is heading in a new direction.

The company says it is changing its name to Lytx—as in analytics—in anticipation of a new business initiative to broaden and diversify its core business, which uses dashboard video cameras and telematics technologies to analyze driver behavior, identify risks, and provide feedback so fleet operators can reduce accidents, save lives, and hold down insurance costs. DriveCam will continue as the flagship business under the Lytx umbrella as the company rolls out some new lines of business.

Spokeswoman Julie Cunningham isn’t ready to talk about the company’s new initiatives. But as part of the name change, Lytx is emphasizing the expertise it has accrued in collecting and analyzing sensor data as part of its subscription-based software as a service.

“You may know us as DriveCam, but we’re about more than devices,” the company says on its website, and an accompanying video feels like it was produced around the use of such keyword terms as “compliance,” “safety,” and “optimize.”

So it’s conceivable that Lytx is laying plans to provide a similar sort of data monitoring with analytics feedback in such areas as healthcare or food safety. Think in terms of a nurse’s station in a cardiac care unit, where analytics and other prompts could be used to reduce caregiver errors.

The name change also follows a series of substantial equity funding deals for the profitable company.

RAIR also will continue as part of the new Lytx brand. While DriveCam claims to be the market leader (rivals SmartDrive Systems and Verizon Networkfleet also are based in San Diego) Cunningham says the DriveCam business has just 5 percent of a very large global market in terms of penetration, “which means we have a long way to go.”